The design of the exterior lighting components of automobiles plays an important role in the styling and marketing of vehicles in the automotive market. Vehicle designers are interested in technologies that can both provide the required regulatory functions of automotive exterior lighting and enable a unique and aesthetically pleasing lit and unlit appearance of the lighting components on the vehicle. There is also a desire to create uniformity and continuity in the lit appearance of functionally separate lamps that may be in close proximity to one another, for instance, the corner tail lamp and the applique or lift gate lamps. Achieving the desired uniformity generally requires the use of the same light source in different lamps with different functions. Accordingly, potential light sources must be capable of providing a range of different automotive lighting functions.
In addition to the use of conventional incandescent bulbs in exterior lighting, automotive engineers have more recently incorporated light emitting diodes into lighting as a light source. Because light emitting diodes are a point source generally providing light in a Lambertian distribution, the use of light emitting diodes yields a lit appearance that is “spotty” or “dotted,” which is currently common on many automobiles. However, more recently vehicle designers have demanded greater homogeneity in the lit appearance of the lamps. Consequently, a uniformly lit “neon-look,” similar to the appearance of a neon tube, is in relatively high demand. However, neon tubes have not been widely adopted in automotive lighting due to a number of technical drawbacks.
Recently, light guides have been used in lamps to approximate the look of a neon tube. However, conventional light guides or pipes have difficulty creating a uniformly lit appearance because the emission of light near the light source is generally significantly greater than the light emission further along the length of the guide. The result is line or bar of light that is noticeably brighter at an end than in the middle.
Therefore, there is a need for an optical-grade light pipe that may be lit with a single, localized source that provides a uniform light intensity along its entire length and that enables a lamp meeting the functional requirements for an automotive lamp.